<p>Hey everyone. (I'm new to these forums, but it looks like there's plenty of good information here... so I thought I might ask around and see how people will respond...)</p>
<p>I'm not a particularly good student, but recently I've been on an improving streak in terms of grades and test scores, and I think I might have become a candidate for some of the UC schools.</p>
<p>Applying to:
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UCSD
UCI
UCR
Harvey Mudd
USC</p>
<p>Grades:
3.45 unweighted,
3.85 weighted.</p>
<h2>SAT: 2080</h2>
<p>Here's the story. I used to be a really bad student in terms of grades and whatnot, and my GPA used to be something around 3.2, which was really scary to me because I knew there was almost no way I was going to make the colleges that I really wanted to go to. So I forced myself to perform better, and by the end of junior year I had a 3.85 GPA, weighted with 4 AP courses. I talked to my counselor about my grades, and he noticed the improving trend from freshman -> junior year, and noted that colleges will appreciate my effort in improving and will view the results as a beneficial component of my application.</p>
<p>So yay, all is well. NOT. This year is my senior year, and everything is going wrong. Due to the recent budget cut in our schools/districts, etc.. we've had to lay off some teachers and as a result a lot of our classes were also removed, and more students were crammed into less classes. As a result, instead of the normal 6 course schedule I usually get, this year I could only have a 5 course schedule because there was no elective class I could fit into my 1st period. I play sports, so that means this year I only have 4 academic classes and then tennis.</p>
<p>I'm taking AP Macroeconomics, AP Literature, and AP Biology as well as Advanced Art right now. Except.. my grades are dying right now.
AP Macroecon: B-
AP Lit: C- (Or maybe worse? I have NO idea.)
AP Biology: B+
Advanced art: B-</p>
<p><strong><em>The reason I'm not taking AP Calculus, is because I finished all the calculus courses that my school offered. I'm a year ahead of my regular class in mathematics, so as a result I completed AP Calculus BC my junior year.</em></strong></p>
<p>So anyway, my grades right now represent nothing but a complete drop in performance. It looks like senioritis, because I even "dropped" a class to have a free period in the morning. I'm not even trying to be lazy either; my classes this year are particularly hard compared to what I'm used to, and I'm currently struggling in AP Lit because my teacher is notorious for NEVER (seriously!) giving A's.</p>
<p>I'm currently working hard on improving my grades, but I admit that I will have a lot of difficulty with this. How will colleges view me if I don't manage to bring any of my grades up?</p>